by Derek J. Landis, Legal Intern, Helping Educate to Advance the Rights of Deaf people (HEARD)
As a fourth-year culturally Deaf student majoring in Criminal Justice at the Rochester Institute of Technology and an intern for Helping Educate to Advance the Rights of Deaf people (HEARD), I have a unique perspective on the effect of mass incarceration on deaf and disability communities. The importance of HEARD’s all-volunteer advocacy cannot be understated; and we need our community to support HEARD and join in HEARD’s fight against mass incarceration now, more than ever before.
MASS INCARCERATION?
In 2014, I was part of the group of six Deaf, DeafBlind, DeafDisabled and Hard of Hearing Youth to develop some of the American Sign Language signs to introduce mass incarceration to the community. I was largely unaware of mass incarceration until I took a course called Disability and the Law with one of the founders of HEARD, Talila A. Lewis. Once I learned about the impact mass incarceration has on deaf and disability communities, I was immediately compelled to get involved as a Deaf Youth Advocate to do my part to advance deaf justice and disability justice.
Mass incarceration is the term used to refer to the United States’ ahistorical imprisonment of an unseemly number of people in local jails and state and federal prisons—mostly for non-violent crimes. To put this in perspective, consider that the rate of imprisonment in the United States has increased by eight hundred percent, during less than four decades, despite the fact that crime is at historic lows.[1] The United States makes up only 5% of the world’s population, but has 25% of all incarcerated people on the globe, easily taking the shameful title of being the world’s incarceration capital.[2] Some of the major contributors to the growth of mass incarceration in the United States are the government’s insistence on use of harsh and disproportionate punishment instead of prevention and rehabilitation; creation and use of “tough on crime” sentencing legislation; profiling of race, class, and ethnic minorities; and privatization of prisons and prison contractors; among others.
However, one of the most overlooked factors contributing to mass incarceration is criminalization of disability,[3] including lack of access to education for deaf/disabled students[4] and the severe lack of deaf and disability cultural competence within the entire criminal legal system.[5] Relatedly, since most of our incarcerated population is imprisoned for non-violent drug-related offenses, we should be providing rehabilitation for people with addiction disabilities, not harsh punishment.[6] In addition, deaf and disabled people have been killed, assaulted and arrested for deaf/disability-related behaviors that were misunderstood by law enforcement.[7] HEARD created a Living Log of Police Brutality[8] to help track these incidents and also worked for more than five years to locate deaf incarcerated people all across the nation. In fact, HEARD created the only national database of deaf incarcerated individuals to try to provide the necessary support and advocacy for our incarcerated community members, most of whom have disabilities.
The school to prison pipeline[9] is yet another huge problem that is directly related to mass incarceration. The school to prison pipeline describes the disturbing trend of funneling our school children out of schools and into the juvenile legal system. Schools have instituted “zero tolerance” policies that punish children for being children and/or for having disabilities. One suspension exponentially raises the likelihood of a child going to prison. Studies show that this “zero tolerance” approach is not effective and decreases educational outcomes, weakens relationships within school, and diverts funding from education to the carceral system.
Importantly, race, class and disability play a big factor in mass incarceration and school to prison pipeline. For example, NBC News spent two years analyzing school discipline data of more than 95,000 schools across the nation.[10] Among other things, they found that a black teen with disabilities was sixteen times more likely to be arrested in school than a white teen without disabilities. Other studies have shown that students of color, LGBTQI students, and students with disabilities are disciplined more harshly than their peers.
People with mental illness also are arrested and locked away simply for having a disability—often being punished within the prison for behaviors that are directly related to their disability.[11] These individuals need support and treatment, but because the U.S. has developed, within our population, a false sense that people who use drugs and people with mental illness are a “threat,” very rarely is sympathy shown or support provided to these individuals. Prisons were never designed as places for people with disability or deaf people, and yet that is the largest minority population found in jails and prisons today. Shockingly, people with disability make up twenty percent of our population, but represent 60-80% of jail and prison populations. Not to mention that many of the people who do not receive necessary support in the community are swept into the criminal legal system for status offenses (i.e., “crimes of need”), or after pleading guilty (over 90% of cases are resolved through guilty pleas), or after they are wrongfully convicted.
Lastly, there is the issue of prison privatization, privatization of prison industries and of prison labor. Prisons are being operated by private companies who reap enormous profit from incarcerating people.[12] Since prisons are run for-profit, it is in the best the interest of prison corporations and prison businesses to keep inmates in the prison system as long as possible. Thus, the companies with the most lobbying and financial power have a vested interest in keeping people incarcerated instead of rehabilitating them. In fact, their jobs depend on it. We have seen these companies lobby for more strict laws that require longer sentences and more laws, overall. This is all so these multi-million dollar companies can make even more profit off the backs of the most marginalized people in American society.
HEARD, THE DEAF ACCESS TO JUSTICE MOVEMENT & YOU!
HEARD was founded in 2011 after disabled, deaf and hearing young people began working on deaf wrongful conviction cases but could not get support from large organizations that served deaf, disabled or wrongfully convicted individuals. These youth have been at the forefront of the effort to bring about disability/deaf justice and disability solidarity[13] while fighting against mass incarceration of all our communities.
Since then, HEARD has investigated deaf multiple wrongful conviction cases; created a national database of deaf detainees and prisoners; supervised over fifteen Deaf, DeafBlind, DeafDisabled Youth leaders (including myself); trained law enforcement, attorneys and legislators across the nation; fought to get videophones installed in prisons across the nation (this fight is ongoing for six years now); organized teach-ins and other events to educate our own community; and much more. Our all-volunteer organization has done all of this with no office, no staff, no attorneys. HEARD volunteers have a lot of heart and the strong will to see a change for the better for all of our communities.
Over the years, I have attended and presented at HEARD Deaf Access to Justice workshops. After these presentations, people often report feeling overwhelmed by the scope of this problem. Many feel like they do not know where to begin. In response to that, I would just encourage you and say that every little thing you do to support this effort goes a long way.
Here are some of the things I have done in just two years. Hopefully this gives you ideas and proves that every little bit helps.
I correspond with Deaf, DeafBlind, DeafDisabled and Hard of Hearing incarcerated people through traditional mail and will soon have opportunities to correspond with some of them via videophone in the prisons where HEARD has had success in getting videophones installed.
In addition to helping create some of the ASL signs for mass incarceration concepts, I developed vlogs to explain these concepts in ASL and posted them online to help the community understand mass incarceration and all of its related issues. A vlog is a blog that contains video content.
I was involved in a prison handbook translation project where we helped translate the English content of Monroe County (Rochester, New York) Jail regulations into American Sign Language to try to help deaf arrested/detained people in Monroe County understand the procedures and processes. Does your local jail or prison have information that is accessible for our community?
I have conversations with my friends, professors, and family members about this topic and all I have witnessed through my work with HEARD.
I hosted online conversations about these topics using #DeafEd, #DeafAccessToJustice and #DeafInPrison. Using these hashtags raises awareness and helps spread information. For example, even one short and simple Facebook or Twitter post using #DeafInPrison helps our effort.
Related to that last point, I want to emphasize the importance of using social media to gain support for different causes in our communities. HEARD has created ASL videos to explain Twitter,[14] but in brief, it is a free online social networking service that enables people to send and read text messages up to 140 characters in length called “tweets.” You can also upload video and photos—which obviously has even more benefits for our communities. HEARD has used this as a tool for uplifting our communities and highlighting important issues. In addition to hosting monthly #DeafEd Twitter chats,[15] we also created #DeafInPrison and #DeafAccessToJustice to raise the profile of our community and our issues. I actually moderated HEARD’s very first #DeafEd twitter chat back in the fall of 2014!
You also can use Twitter to engage people in events when they cannot attend. For example, I attended HEARD’s Baton Rouge, Louisiana workshop called “The Crisis of Deaf Access to Justice and Deaf in Prison.” While I was there, not only did I give a presentation on the issues of deaf access to justice and deaf in prison, but I also live tweeted the discussion using our hashtag so people who could not attend could participate and learn as well. So, if you want to help the community and take action, one of the ways to do it is hosting or participating in these or other Twitter chats and by using our hashtags to share information. Follow us on Twitter @behearddc to get the latest news on deaf education, deaf access to justice, deaf in prison, and much more.
I end this article with a call to action. Please, for the sake of future generations, do something to help combat mass incarceration. To fight injustice, we must all work together to ensure that students; disabled community members; community members from marginalized racial/ethnic backgrounds; low and no income community members; and our incarcerated community members have access to resources they need to survive and thrive.
We can’t do it alone. Join the Deaf Access to Justice Movement!
[1] https://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2014/05/09/its-time-for-prison-reform-and-an-end-to-mandatory-minimum-sentences
[2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2015/07/07/yes-u-s-locks-people-up-at-a-higher-rate-than-any-other-country/?utm_term=.adb844143de4
[3] https://www.americanprogress.org/press/release/2016/07/18/141458/release-overcriminalization-of-people-with-disabilities-must-be-addressed-in-criminal-justice-reform/
[4] http://thenewinquiry.com/essays/the-right-to-remain-silent
[5] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lydia-l-callis/post_8582_b_6127898.html
[6] https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/tools-and-samples/hr-qa/pages/adadrugsandalcohol.aspx
[7] https://www.facebook.com/HEARDDC/videos/vb.173173689394810/1262694537109381/?type=2&theater
[8] https://www.facebook.com/HEARDDC/posts/1259106334134868
[9] http://www.pbs.org/wnet/tavissmiley/tsr/education-under-arrest/school-to-prison-pipeline-fact-sheet/
[10] http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/California-Schools-Call-Police-on-Black-Students-with-Disabilities-Far-More-Often-Than-Other-Children-414433353.html
[11] https://www.aclu.org/report/caged-devastating-harms-solitary-confinement-prisoners-physical-disabilities
[12] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-w-whitehead/prison-privatization_b_1414467.html
[13] http://www.talilalewis.com/blog/achieving-liberation-through-disability-solidarity
[14] https://www.facebook.com/HEARDDC/videos/1180713221974180/
[15] http://www.talilalewis.com/blog/actually-the-ddbddhh-community-mostly-youth-started-the-deafed-movement